In scathing article, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. summarized the opinions of many of President Trump's critics about the administration's handling of the growing coronavirus epidemic. M. Pitts exclaimed that: "The mixed-up, mixed-message misadventures of the Trump regime as it struggled to frame a coherent response to the novel coronavirus threat was a master class in what happens in a post-competence world once a critical mass of voters decides that stupidity is authentic and ignorance some form of native genius. It was frightening and perversely fascinating to watch."
Mr. Trump's attempts at playing down the gravity of the outbreak, inserting his hunches over the factual messaging from scientists and other experts, did little to calm people's fears. It also did not help to see the president, on national T.V., proclaim that he would prefer not to let the 3,535 passengers from the Covid-19 stricken cruise ship, the Grand Princess, held off the coast of California, a floating petri-dish on which 21 out of a paltry 44 passengers and crew that were tested, were found infected, to disembark on U.S. soil because: "it would make the number of U.S. infections look worse." Aside from showing his colors and clarifying his concerns, Mr. Trump placed Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration's response team, rather than infectious disease specialist. Mr. Pence has often exhibited a contentious relationship with scientific facts and is known for his slavish relationship with Mr. Trump. In short, the president did very little to make the population and the financial markets feel confident about his approach to securing the health and safety of the country.
Donald Trump's response was not unexpected. On the one hand, a significant segment of the voting public, his "base," will accept and support anything he says or does. This in itself is a problem when we are teetering on the edge of a pandemic. On the other hand, as far back as his election, many of his critics referred to his administration as a "kakistocracy," a word derived from the Greek "kakistos," meaning "the worst," identifying a government run by the worst, least qualified and least suitable citizens of a state.
The earliest uses of the word date back to the 17th century, most often used by traditional conservative forces fighting off increasing demands for political change. In 1644, during the time that Britain was enmeshed in its first civil war between the Parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell, who wanted to reshape the government into a constitutional monarchy and the Royalists under King Charles I, who wanted to hold on to the absolute monarchy, in a sermon preached before the two houses of Parliament, at St. Maries, Oxford, Paul Gosnold cautioned: "Therefore we need not make any scruple of praying against such: against those Sanctimonious Incendiaries, who have fetched fire from heaven to set their Country in combustion... Those restles spirits who can no longer live, then be stickling and meddling; who are stung with a perpetual itch of changing and innovating, transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this again into a newer Independency; and our well-tempered Monarchy into a kind of Kakistocracy. Good Lord."
In his 1829 novel "The Misfortunes of Elphin," Thomas Love Peacock explained that Kakistocracy represented the opposite of aristocracy, as "aristos" in Greek meant"excellent." In his "Memoir on Slavery," published in 1838, William Harper, a U.S. senator from South Carolina, compared kakistocracy to anarchy, claiming it was fully exemplified during the excesses of the French Revolution: "In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned - to protect the innocent is to be guilty, and what perhaps is he worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence." And in a letter to the writer Joel Benton, in 877, poet James Russell Lowell questioned the excesses of Democracy: "What fills me with doubt and dismay is the degradation of the moral tone, is it or is it not a result of Democracy? Is ours a 'government of the people by the people for the people,' or a kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?"
From the early days of his presidency, actually even from before Donald Trump took office, his administration has been compared to a kakistocracy. The president himself was deemed unqualified to be commander-in-chief. His assertion that "I alone can fix it" in his convention speech has always been ingested with a grain of salt. Presidents don't need to be experts. However, they are expected to surround themselves with skilled professionals. Trump's insistence that he knows more than the specialists has become laughable. His cabinet choices have not instilled confidence in the administration's ability to run the government. Rex Tillerson, his first Secretary of State, had zero background in diplomacy of foreign affairs. Jeff Sessions, who was denied a role as federal judge during the 1980s, amid a racism controversy, became Attorney General. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, without a background in housing policy, who early on ruled himself out of a cabinet position because he felt he had no government experience, became Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry ran for president on a platform to abolish the Department of Energy, until Mr. Trump made him its leader. Betsy DeVos, who has derided public education, favoring school choice and vouchers instead, became Secretary of Education. And the list goes on.
It is certainly true that kakistocracy as a concept can be abused. It is not difficult to surmise that in every generation there are those who consider their government as the worst ever; The term is often invoked to tarnish any government one disagrees with. But the populist revolution convulsing the world today has led many to discover that "corrupt, dishonest and incompetent politicians, regulators and bureaucrats were put in charge by self-absorbed, selfish and ignorant citizens." (Michael Lewitt, "Investing in a Kakistocracy," Forbes, Oct. 13, 2016).
Be it as it may, Donald Trump's self-centered know-it-all attitude and his lackeys have done little to calm the country's jitters. His claim to have inherited genes from his "great super-genius uncle" who taught at MIT, while waving off medical professionals standing next to him and asserting to have a "natural ability" to understand how to handle the coronavirus threat was hardly reassuring. Our lives and fortunes are at stake. For once, Mr. Trump ought to retire to one of his golf courses, stop worrying about the allegiance of his staff, keep his mouth shut and let he real professionals handle this without being unduly pressured by politics. Real leadership demands no less.
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